Double Jeopardy. Conspiracy Theories.
I'm not cynical by nature, but the words keep mocking me when I see the chance of of righting my wrong conviction slipping away.
You might think that a good justice system would welcome the truth. Embarrassing, I expect, for them to have to admit that the system has let me down and that an innocent man bears the label of lifer and languishes in jail.
Yet it seems to me that while authority knows I am wrongly convicted, reparation is not in the offing. Rather - and I am loathe to think this, but I can't see any other explanation - the opposite.
The shadowy figures who control the English Justice System must be conspiring to keep me inside.
After seven years in prison and after three appeal applications refused, I find my parole possibilities are being diluted.
For seven years, both the Probation Service and the Prison Service have considered me to be Low Risk. Admittedly that's one up on a judge during the trial time who considered me not to be any sort of risk at all.
But now, after serving seven years stolen from my life, I am reassessed as being Medium Risk. It might be laughable, except that the classification is very closely connected to parole likelihood.
So before I came to prison, I was no risk to anyone. But after seven years out of society, seven years of behaving and working all the time, being almost the model prisoner, mysteriously I am now considered to be a riskier fellow.
I asked my probation officer about it, because this is the person who earlier considered that of the 85,111 people in prison in England and Wales, I was among those who posed the very least risk.
'I don't understand what could have changed,' I said.
'The answer is very simple, Roger,' the officer said. 'You see, before you were a B category prisoner. As a B category prisoner you were considered to be of the lowest risk.'
'But nothing has changed for the riskier. Here I am institutionalised, or virtually institutionalised, by the years locked away. Compliant, is a term they use. There've been no recorded negative reports of behaviour or attitudes. So surely I should be rated as Low Minus.'
'Roger, please try to concentrate. Now, you were Low because you were B Category. Right?'
'I accept that's how it was.'
'Well, now there's a change, like you are now Category C. Do you see?'
'The Category has changed, that's all.'
'Oh, Roger, please. Your Category has changed. It's a big change, isn't it? You'll, like, admit that won't you?'
'It's a big change and I am grateful for it, but ...'
'No buts, Roger. It's a big change and that means everything has changed. You are a different category and that means you must have a different category for your Risk. And so you have.'
'But if you change my risk category, parole goes farther away.'
'You know, Roger, that like I can't speak to you about parole. A decision in that area belongs to a parole hearing, not to your probation officer.'
Getting answers is sometimes easier from the prison manuals, I've been told, so I went looking.
Of course, there's nothing to be found about innocent people who are convicted. But word inside is very loud on the subject. The door only opens for those who say they are guilty. And so most people within will tell you to own up to it whether you did it or not, and you get home much quicker.
'Course, it's different for you,' a neighbour explained. 'Lifers is different. We normal geezas don't ever go into denial. Not if we want to go home. But you, Roge, I fink you need a miracle.'
I didn't kill Anita - I loved her.
And those crossword terms surface again and again. Double Jeopardy. Conspiracy Theories. Isn't it double standards to treat people so differently, to let people go home because they say what authority wants to hear?
And isn't it a sort of conspiracy to keep a man captive because he insists on the truth. The truth is that I did not kill my wife.
My story is here. I would like you to know about me and this mistake by the British criminal justice system.
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